


Bed-warmer

by caldefrance



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Beards (Facial Hair), Bears, Bed-sharing, Body Hair, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Dirty Talk, Drinking, Flirting, Forced Voyeurism, Frottage, Infidelity, Loneliness, M/M, Moving On, Narcissism, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, Revenge, Short Story, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Relationships, emotional blackmail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:46:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caldefrance/pseuds/caldefrance
Summary: Joe never liked to sleep alone, so he convinced Booker to keep his bed warm whenever Nicky goes away.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	Bed-warmer

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written in response to a prompt posted to theoldguardkinkmeme, which you can find here:  
> https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1106.html?thread=93010#cmt93010
> 
> “When Nicky is away on missions Booker keeps Joe’s bed warm.”
> 
> And re-posted here:  
> https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/6085.html?thread=2200517#cmt2200517
> 
> “Even though Nicky/Joe is my indisputable OTP, whenever I wish to torture myself (and my favourite characters) I go looking for Booker/Joe because: 1) it’s extremely hard to find, and 2) whatever the nature of their relationship may be, it’s very likely that one or _both_ of them will eventually get hurt.”
> 
> Everyone knows that Joe loves Nicky, but—realistically—they’re not able to spend every living moment together. Andy would never allow him to bring home some stranger to one of their safehouses, just so he could satisfy his need for a bed partner. So Joe settled for a compromise he thought they could all live with—convincing Booker to keep his bed warm whenever Nicky goes away.
> 
> If you're looking for a different kind of piece, with similar themes, in which Booker's promiscuity gives Joe and Nicky the idea to try a new sex position, allow me to recommend another piece I wrote called "Jouissance":
> 
> "Joseph, Nicolas, and Sébastien were supposed to join Andréa in the Languedoc once they’d settled their business with their contact in Grenoble. For a week now, Sébastien had also been doing business with _les filles_ in Grenoble. Apparently, _les filles de joie_ —sex workers—in this small town nestled in the French Alps knew how to please a man—and keep him coming back for more. As Sébastien took great pleasure in regaling Joseph and Nicolas with stories of his nightly exploits, of how Marine or Marie-France or Mathilde took him in hand and rode him to completion, Nicolas began to worry that his lover might also wish to visit _les filles_."
> 
> Read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224350

“What do you think about cancelling our plans tonight and staying in?”

Booker had been eating his takeaway dandan noodles mindlessly, sat at the table of their tiny flat—code-named Lima safehouse—in Hong Kong’s busy Tsim Sha Tsui district, when he thought for a second that he heard Joe proposition him. What took Booker by surprise was that Joe even thought of him that way. Booker shrugged it off, figuring that Joe didn’t realize that his lover was no longer in the room.

“Nicky’s in the bathroom,” Booker grunted, giving him the chance to save face.

“I know,” Joe said, with a smirk. “I was talking to you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You make the filthiest noises when you slurp your noodles like that. It makes me wonder what kind of noises you would make if I let you suck my cock.”

Booker stared, stunned speechless, as Joe winked at him. Booker wasn’t some wilting flower. He wouldn’t have been surprised if some stranger on the street or, even, Andy flirted with him so openly. In fact, they had developed ribbing each other abut their sex lives—or, rather, lack thereof—into a pastime. He had always thought that Joe and Nicky only had eyes for each other.

“Did you say something, Joe?” Nicky called out from the bathroom.

“Nothing important!”

“Ready to head out, _tesoro_? Andy said she wanted us to have eyes on Nathan Road before the crowds start to gather tonight.”

“Yes. We can go now,” Joe said, as he grabbed his bag and keys without even a sideways glance at Booker.

“Don’t wait up, Booker, but keep your phone handy in case we need a hand!” Nicky said to Booker, as he followed Joe out the door.

Booker tried not to think about what Joe had said to him or imagine how his body might feel under him. He had almost convinced himself that Joe was only teasing him, when it happened again.

Booker was washing dishes by hand in the kitchen sink of the studio they’d taken in Amsterdam, after they had discovered that Romeo safehouse had been compromised by squatters, when Joe came up behind him and propositioned him again.

“Feel like breaking some rules tonight?”

Booker shuddered. He remembered overhearing Joe use the same words with Nicky once and he remembered the enthusiasm with which Nicky had responded. He could repeat that response, now, and test how far Joe was willing to take his flirtation. Or, he could turn him down and stand to look Nicky in the eye again when he returned from the overnight assignment that had taken him to the Hague.

“I don’t think I’m the man you’re looking for,” Booker said to Joe, trying to remind him of the commitment he’d made to Nicky before he was even born.

“He’s not here right now,” Joe murmured, brushing off his objection. “Even Andy’s gone out to seek her own satisfaction tonight. No one else is here, but us. No one else needs to know about this, if you don’t want them to.”

Booker groaned as Joe pressed himself against his clothed back and pushed his body against the kitchen counter. He could feel the swollen bulge of Joe’s arousal against the curve of his arse.

“Why now? Why me?” Booker protested, struggling to understand why he would want to bed someone like him—a middle-aged widower with a drinking problem.

“You were grieving,” Joe shrugged, as he man-handled him, turning him around and feeling down the front of his body. “I can be patient, but anyone with eyes can see how much you’re suffering from your loneliness. I’ve been watching you as you try to move forward and keep stumbling back into old habits. I know you’ve been alone for a long time, but you should know that you don’t have to be.”

Booker bit back a moan as Joe fondled—man-handled—his groin through the thick fabric of his denims.

“Don’t you want this, Sebastian? Don’t you want to feel intimacy like this again?”

Booker wavered, imagining how easy it would be to fall into bed with another body and how good it would feel to find pleasure in another’s embrace. He hadn’t felt intimacy with anyone since he’d lost his wife. He’d slept with prostitutes and with strangers—men and women both—whenever he felt he couldn’t bear the loneliness any longer, but he’d never felt any sense of closeness with any of those temporary bed partners.

Booker looked around the studio, seeing there was only one bed, and realized he had nowhere to hide from the man who had refused to take no for an answer.

“I know you know how awful it feels to go to bed alone every night,” Joe murmured to him, as he stroked his unshaven cheek, to capture his attention again as he manipulated his feelings and ensnared him. “I know you know how desperately lonely it feels to sleep without a bed partner.”

Joe paused, looking Booker in the eye, and then he delivered his killing blow. “I know you wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone else. I know you wouldn’t want me to feel that way.”

Booker caved.

Sebastian sat, feeling vulnerable, on the bed—Joe’s bed—and fiddled with the fabric of the sheets as he waited for the other man to join him.

“I prefer my bed partners naked,” Joe told him, as he divested himself of his clothing, “but if you’re not comfortable with that for now, I’ll let you keep your clothes on.”

Sebastian clutched at the shirt that covered his chest. He felt like a timid virgin, waiting to be taken for the first time by an experienced lover, in spite of the fact that he didn’t think his worn middle-aged body could ever be thought of as either maidenly or innocent. He waited, anxiously, for the other man to direct him and tell him how he should lie down and share his bed.

“How do you want me?” Sebastian asked Joe, when he turned to him.

“Lie down, Sebastian,” Joe told him, patting the part of the bed next to him. “Don’t be selfish! Come share your warmth with me.”

Sebastian laid himself out, and let Joe press his body against his.

“That’s it,” Joe said, grinding his body against his. “Share yourself with me.”

Sebastian felt something—Joe’s prick—poke him in the _derrière_.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a nice arse?” Joe asked him.

Sebastian felt his cheeks warm. “Not in those exact words—no,” he replied.

Joe chuckled, tickling the back of Sebastian’s neck with his thick beard.

“You have a nice arse, Sebastian. It makes me want to—”

Sebastian curled his hands into fists against his chest as Joe rubbed himself against his arse, between his legs. He wondered, briefly, whether the other man would yank down his pants and have his way with him then and there.

“I want more—” Joe had stilled his movements against him, as he came up with a better idea. “What would you say if I asked you to go down on me now?”  
“I-if you want,” Sebastian said, caught off-guard, but relieved to have been asked.

“Here, let me shift up and you move down for me.” Joe said, moving behind him to sit up against the headboard, and directing him to kneel between his legs.  
Sebastian saw the way Joe smiled down at him, with a little tilt of his head and a quirk of his eyebrow, and thought he looked like a man who knew he would get everything he wanted.

Sebastian let Joe part his lips and open his mouth with his thumb. He sucked on his thumb and fingers, coating them with his saliva, and watched as the other man then stroked and nursed his cock with his slicked hand.

“I want you to start at the tip,” Joe instructed him. “Lick and suck at it, then start to take it into your mouth.”

Sebastian braced himself against the bed and lowered his head to take Joe’s cock in his mouth, first licking at the slit and tasting its saltiness, and hesitated for a moment before swallowing his cock until his gag reflex stopped him short.

Sebastian looked up and saw Joe shudder and thud his head against the hard wood of the bed’s headboard.

Sebastian closed his eyes and concentrated again on the task before him—he wrapped his lips around the cock he’d taken into his mouth and sucked.

Sebastian felt Joe’s thighs brush against his face, as he groaned with pleasure.

“Oh! Your beard! It tickles!” Joe laughed, as he jerked beneath him. “I’d half-forgotten what it felt like to have hair _down there_.”

Sebastian kept on bobbing his head and tickling the other man with the hair of his beard, as he traced his tongue along the underside of his cock and teased his depilated skin.

“Hold on! Use your hand! You’ll give me beard burn!”

Sebastian let Joe guide his hand to stroke his shaft, as he sucked again on the tip of his cock. He had nearly lost himself in his task, when he caught the quiet sound of a mobile ringing—vibrating—on the bed-side table.

“Hold still,” Joe told him, as he reached for his mobile.

Joe swore under his breath when he saw the caller ID, then held up a finger to his lips, shushing him, and answered the call.

“Is everything all right?” Joe asked the caller.

Sebastian waited, frozen in a compromising position, as Joe listened to the voice at the other end of the line. He was afraid to move—lest he make a sound or wring a groan from the other man and reveal their entanglement. He felt caught—trapped—as he listened in to one-half of the conversation.

“You’re bored? I’m sure Andy would love to hear that her best sharpshooter can hardly concentrate because he’s too preoccupied by his sore arse.”

Sebastian felt a ball drop in the pit of his stomach, as he was overcome with a feeling of horror, when he realized who the caller was. He felt horrified by the realization that Joe had taken a call from Nicky while he was sucking his cock—in the bed they might have shared tonight, if Andy hadn’t sent him away on an assignment.

“Do you feel lonely without me?”

Sebastian imagined that Nicky’s reply was fairly obscene given Joe’s reaction, as his stomach trembled and his pelvis shifted underneath him.

“Are you alone?”

Sebastian wanted to scream and shout out that they weren’t alone.

“Let me tell you what I would do to you, if you were spending the night by my side. I would take you to my bed, where I would divest you of all your clothing. I would devote all of my attention to you, as I skimmed my hands over your body—over your chest and your sensitive nipples and your trembling abdomen and down to the heat of your groin.”

Sebastian shivered as he could too easily imagine the feelings being described over the phone.

“Are you touching yourself, Nicky?”

Sebastian felt a sense of guilt that he was touching Joe, keeping his cock warm, while he spoke over the phone.

“Hold on—let me put you on speaker, so I can free up my hands.”

Sebastian felt helpless, overcome with by the terrifying thought that he might let slip some sound that Nicky would hear over the open phone line.  
“What would you do to me, then?” Nicky’s voice asked, over the phone, already breathless.

Sebastian felt Joe’s hands cup the back of his head, tangling the tips of his fingers in his hair, and began to move him to suck and bob on his cock, as he spoke to Nicky on the phone.

“I would have you lie down, on your stomach, and try to relax. I would massage the muscles of your back with my hands—working and teasing your tense muscles of your shoulders and back and—finally—your buttocks.”

Nicky’s hard breathing was amplified by the phone’s speaker.

Sebastian felt powerless, as he could do nothing but listen in on two people enjoying phone sex.

“I would have you kneel before me—”

Nicky voiced a suggestive moan that crackled over the phone line.

Sebastian, who knelt before Joe now, felt his hands become more rigid and more forceful as he directed him to swallow and stimulate his cock.

“I would trace the outline of your arse with light touches, before pressing a single digit against your arsehole. I would open you up, one finger at a time, pressing and massaging and kneading your tight passage.”

Nicky’s breath hitched a little and he moaned unabashedly again.

“Are you touching yourself?” Joe asked Nicky.

“Yes,” Nicky’s replied, moaning. “What about you, _tesoro_?”

Sebastian shivered, as he felt an illicit thrill of fear at the possibility that he might be discovered—if Joe chose to mention his presence in the room.

“I’m—” Joe groaned, as he fucked Sebastian’s mouth, “taking care of myself.”

Sebastian hummed, inaudibly, around his cock in agreement and felt the man quiver and moan beneath him.

“I wish I were there with you, making you moan for me,” Nicky said, encouraging him on.

Joe moaned for him. “If you were here, I would flip your body over so I could see every expression that crosses your face as I overwhelm your senses with pleasure, and sink my stiff cock into your loosened passage. I would grind my pelvis against your arse and then reach around and take your cock in hand.”

Sebastian nearly choked, as Joe sought to quench his arousal with his willing mouth.

“I would thrust and slap my hips desperately against your arse, stretching and filling you, until we pushed each other over the edge with our need.”

Nicky’s response was pornographic.

Sebastian tried to relax, repressing his gag reflex, as he feared he might trigger a coughing fit and reveal himself. He let Joe jerk against him and fill his mouth with his seed, as he was driven over the edge by the sounds Nicky was making over the phone. He then let himself collapse, shaking, against the skin of Joe’s thigh, when he was released.

“Nicky?” Joe called out, when the voice on the phone remained silent. “Are you still there?“

“I’m here, with you, wherever you are.”

“Come back, then.”

“Soon,” the voice on the phone promised. “I’ll be on the 10:53 train to Amsterdam Centraal. Andy said she’d meet me at the station. She’s promised me brunch!”

Joe laughed, “Make sure she buys you some champagne! _’Iinaa ahbk!_ ”

Sebastian watched as Joe cut the call and turned his attention to him, where he lay between his legs, feeling like an imposter.

“You made me feel so good, Sebastian,” Joe said, reassuring him and guiding him up, so they might lie side by side again. 

Sebastian moved to lie beside Joe, to keep him company, as his mind raced. He could still taste the bitterness of Joe’s spunk on his tongue. He could still hear the sound of Nicky moaning over the phone. He never imagined he would end up in a _ménage-à-trois_ , when he agreed to share Joe’s bed. He felt his heart flutter as he considered his own _naïveté_ —after all, he had agreed to share the bed of a married man. He wasn’t sure whether he had enjoyed the phone sex or his role as silent participant—like some kind of _voyeur_ —but he thought he’d enjoyed the novelty of it all. He felt torn between feeling horrified and thrilled by it all.

“I’m exhausted,” Joe sighed, interrupting his thoughts. “You look spent, too. I was thinking we could have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow morning, before the others get back.”

Sebastian agreed, already relaxing into the familiarity of sharing a bed with another man. He whole-heartedly enjoyed the simple intimacy of waiting for sleep to take him in another’s company. He had sought this all along—to alleviate his loneliness with the quiet comfort of sharing a bed.

“It’ll be our little secret,” Joe said, then, and his words sent a chill down Sebastian’s spine.

Booker tried not to think about how much he’d enjoyed Joe’s attention and his company all night, when Nicky rejoined them the next day. He tried not to think about how much he wanted to do it again, as he watched Joe and Nicky be together. He tried to bury his feelings, to deny his lustful desires, and then he let it happen again.

Andy had split the team up into pairs: Joe and Booker would travel to Moscow, to make a dead-drop, and Nicky and Andy would travel travel to the Crimean peninsula, to make another target drop dead. Joe and Booker would stay spend 36 hours at Foxtrot safehouse—long enough to signal their contact and handing off a package, with a large cash payment for services rendered.

Booker had passed through immigration on a French passport under a fake name at Sheremetyevo Airport, when he felt a hand on his lower back and an accented voice whisper in his ear.

“I’m going to need your services tonight.”

Booker shivered, as an intense wave of desire crashed through him. He was about to reply, when the voice—Joe’s voice—cut him off.

“Don’t say anything. We don’t want to telegraph our intentions here—not in public.”

Sebastian bit back a groan, feeling intensely aroused as Joe told him exactly how he wanted him.

“Tonight, in private, I want you to take off your clothes and get into bed. I want you to finger yourself and stretch yourself and prepare yourself to take me. I want you to let me have my way with you, and when I make you cry with pleasure, I’m going to mark you as mine.”

“Please—” Sebastian started to say, then held his tongue. What did he want to say? No? Yes? Pleasing you is my only purpose in life?

“I don’t need you to say anything,” Joe snapped at him. “Just do as I say. I’ll be very pissed off if we get arrested for public indecency.”

Sebastian swallowed the reprimand, and the surge of arousal it made him feel, and followed Joe to the terminal’s exit.

Sebastian dwelled on that moment, when Joe had taken a forceful tone with him that he’d never heard him use before, as they travelled on public transit and on foot to their safehouse. He had never sought out that kind of relationship—rough and dominant—with anyone before. He had been taken entirely by surprise with the force with which his body had responded with arousal. He had felt a strong surge of desire course through him, something that was now returning in force, as he relived the memory of Joe’s hand on the small of his back and his strong words whispered in his ear. He had to shift where he stood, hiding his arousal against the bulk of his suitcase, lest his companion or any of the other commuters notice his predicament. He realized, again, that he felt both horrified and thrilled in equal measure by this new turn in his developing relationship.

When they reached Foxtrot safehouse, an old listening station equipped with a desk and a mattress on the floor, it was cold and dark. Foxtrot safehouse was hardly equipped for a comfortable stay, with only a space heater powered by a portable generator and a blanket or two. They ran the generator all afternoon, heating the space before night fell, when they would cut the space heater’s power source, once the noise would outweigh the benefit of its heat. Without it, they had agreed it was only reasonable they would need the comfort of sharing each other’s body heat to keep warm through the night. Once they set about the business of opening up the safehouse and checking their gear, they had agreed Joe would leave to signal their contact and Sebastian would wait for him—keeping his bed warm.

Sebastian waited until Joe had left him alone, to go off and run a counter-surveillance exercise before signalling their contact using trade-craft, then he set about preparing himself as he’d been instructed. He set out sheets and blankets, and made up the bare mattress with layers of warm bedding. He then cut the power to the space heater and with quick motions, divested himself of all his clothing and climbed between the cold sheets.

Sebastian poured out some lube onto the fingers of his left hand, before reaching behind him to touch his furled sphincter muscles, and remembered the words Joe had used the last time they fell into bed together. 

_I would trace the outline of your arse with light touches, before pressing a single digit against your arsehole._

Sebastian shivered as he traced the curve of his butt with his index finger, until he felt the folds of his perineum. He grunted as he circled and then breached his arsehole with his own finger, unused as he was to that kind of intrusion.

_I would open you up, one finger at a time, pressing and massaging and kneading your tight passage._

Sebastian grunted as he inserted first one finger, then two, to stretch the tight muscles of his anal passage. He struggled to distend the muscles by any measure, and worked forcefully to knead and manipulate his own muscles. He felt physically uncomfortable, as he tried to prepare himself for penetrative sex this way, and tried to remember what else the other man had said.

_I would flip your body over so I could overwhelm your senses with pleasure, and sink my stiff cock into your loosened passage._

Sebastian moaned as he relished the thought of being man-handled that way, and found that the arousal that coursed through him helped him to manipulate and stretch himself. He felt heat rise to his cheeks when he accidentally brushed a knot of sensitive tissue—his prostate—and continued to stimulate his own body until he began to lose control and breathe in ragged breaths.

_I would sink my stiff cock into your loosened passage and then reach around and take your cock in hand._

Sebastian panted and whimpered as he reached with his right hand to stroke and stimulate his throbbing prick. He jerked himself off even as he fingered himself, penetrating and stretching and preparing his body for someone else to take his pleasure. He didn’t feel cold, or lonely, as he lay on the bed and waited for his bed partner to join him.

Sebastian didn’t need to wait long. He heard the other man return to the safehouse shortly after dusk and he waited anxiously for him to join him under the blanket and share his body heat.

“Fuck, it’s cold out!” Joe swore, as he pressed his freezing limbs against the warm body of the man in his bed. “I had to run the loop twice before I could even be sure I wasn’t being tailed. After I left the sign by the _Табачный магазин_ like we agreed, I walked the streets at random to get back. I could hardly concentrate on where I was going, I kept thinking about you the whole time—here, alone, preparing yourself for me.”

“How do you want me?” Sebastian asked Joe, hesitant and uncertain, once more.

“On your back,” Joe decided. “I want nothing more than to rub up against your hairy chest and pretend I’m lying on a thick bear-skin rug.”

Sebastian nearly laughed, imagining himself as some _espèce d’ours_ , and shifted over as he’d been asked. He sobered up quickly, though, when he felt a probing finger and then something much larger—Joe’s prick—breach his arse.

“Oh, fuck! Sebastian—you’re so tight.”

Sebastian gasped as Joe penetrated him, breaching and filling his arse. He watched Joe’s face—how he expressed his pleasure, his satisfaction—as he bent his body nearly in half to take the whole length of his cock. He wanted to rub his face against the other man’s thick black beard, as he sank his cock into his body and rested his head in the crook of his shoulder.

“You still with me? Come on, Sebastian, we’re just getting started.”

Sebastian groaned, loudly, still searching for words to describe all the many different sensations he felt as Joe impaled him with his engorged prick—some hurt, an intense sensation of fullness, and overwhelming arousal.

“Tell me—beg me—to move inside you.”

“Please, move—come on—fuck me.”

Sebastian enjoyed the sensation of Joe running his hands through the hair that covered his chest. He gasped as Joe’s hands caught in his tangled chest hair and scratched him. He lost himself in the sensation of the other man grinding his pelvis against his arse. He wished he would make good on his promise and also take his cock in hand.

“Beg me to fuck you harder.”

“ _Je t’en prie. Baise moi!_ ”

Sebastian gripped the sheets with both his hands, trying to anchor himself against the force with which Joe was pounding him or to ground himself as the sensations overwhelmed him.

“Nicky never lets me ravage him like this,” Joe said, groaning as he slapped the skin of his arse with powerful thrusts from his pelvis. “You’re a good fuck, Sebastian.”

Sebastian was in no position to answer him—he had already lost all control over his breathing and of his voice. He let himself moan and grunt and pant and whimper—senselessly—without any sense of restraint or embarrassment.

“I’m going to make you scream my name, and when you cry out for mercy, I’m going to mark you as mine.”

Sebastian screamed and cried out, as Joe pounded against his prostate with all the force of a battering ram and drove him over the edge and he climaxed violently. He whimpered as he felt his thighs tremble and his stomach lurch and his whole body tensed, shuddering and clenching around the cock inside him. He cried out as he felt his pleasure crest and collapse, spent, in a mess of their emissions that covered and filled his body.

Sebastian lay prone, feeling pole-axed and panting hard, while he tried to steady his breathing again and felt semen drop from his loosened arsehole as the other man pulled out.

“Admit it, Sebastian. You liked it,” Joe growled playfully, in his ear, as they caught their breath.

Sebastian felt marked—twisted into a new shape—Joe’s.

“ _Je pense que je dois avouer que je t’aime_ ,” Sebastian sighed, feeling able to confess his feelings after spending all his energy trying to satisfy his bed partner sexually.

“I know, _eshiq_. We should get some sleep while we can.”

Sebastian felt Joe shift over onto his side, facing him, and then press his freezing toes against the bare skin of his calves. He started to move away, but Joe stopped him.

“Don’t you dare move,” Joe ordered him, as he trapped him in a restraining embrace. “Just stay like this and keep me warm. You’re like a bear. You feel so much warmer than Nicky.”

Sebastian returned Joe’s embrace then, huddling for warmth against the cold of a Russian winter, and waited for sleep to take him, too. 

Sebastian woke several hours later, feeling lost. He didn’t recognize the grey world around him, lit only by the strange orange light as a long winter night starts turning into day again. He remembered then, with a rush of delight, that he wasn’t alone—he was sharing his bed with another body—with Joe. He wallowed in the feelings of intimacy and closeness that sleeping in another’s presence brought him. He didn’t care that he’d lost the tug of war over the thin blanket in the night and that the cold had woken him. He shivered, from the chill or the thrill of it, and moved to wrap his arms around his pillow to help him retain his body heat, without waking his bed partner.

_I want you to let me have my way with you, and when I make you cry with pleasure, I’m going to mark you as mine._

Sebastian held onto that memory—of Joe’s words, of his expressed desire for him, of his own surge of arousal when he’d heard them. He dwelled in the feeling of it, letting it quench his longing and fill his well of loneliness. He knew it was selfish of him—to indulge in Joe’s company, to deceive Nicky, this way. He knew that one day the guilt of it all could overwhelm him as surely as his grief had engulfed him in its wake. He knew that he risked tearing apart the only family that remained to him, with each and every time he reached out to touch this man.

 _Eshiq_ — _Amant_ —Lover.

He desperately hoped, clinging to a delusion, that this developing attachment might turn into more than what it was—an affair. He accepted the weakness and selfishness of his feelings and wished, hoped against hope, for more. He committed himself, then, to returning to Joe’s bed—seizing on each and every invitation to join him there.

Booker tried but could not hide what he was doing with Joe from Andy. He knew she had seen too many things in her long life to fail to notice the dangerous liaisons developing between the men who shared her life. He just didn’t expect she would try to intervene, once she’d sent out Joe and Nicky on a grocery run.

“What’s going on, Book?”

Booker stared at her, feeling how his heart started to race in his chest, as he wondered whether he could deflect and evade her questioning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, weakly.

“Sit down, Book,” Andy ordered, gesturing for him to take a seat at the table that had been left in the rectory at Goussainville.

Booker wondered whether Andy had waited on purpose until they stopped overnight at Charlie safehouse, an abandoned parish church outside Paris, to take his confession.

Andy did wait until he had sat down before saying what she felt needed to be said. “I’m going to tell you something as your friend. I want you to listen—don’t react, just listen—to what I’m going to say to you.” She paused, measuring the weight of her next words. “I’ve known Joe for longer than you’ve even been alive. For all that time, I have only ever seen him have a relationship with one man—Nicky.”

Booker wanted to protest—that he was an exception to that rule—but out of respect for her, he let her speak.

“I don’t know what he’s said to you, to get you into his bed, but you can’t take it seriously. He’s using you. He’s bed-warming you—he’s cultivating a relationship with you for the sole purpose of not being alone whenever his partner leaves. I can promise you that he isn’t pining for you the same way that you are pining after his shadow.”

“That can’t be the whole truth,” Booker said, letting his denial—his refusal to accept the simple truth that he was being played—show. “Just because we keep falling into bed together whenever we’re alone doesn’t make it meaningless. I mean—he’s given me a pet-name! He calls me his _eshiq_!"

”Oh, Book. That doesn’t mean what you think it means.” Andy took his hands in her own, grasping them firmly, so he would listen as she delivered her next blow. “It’s an Arabic word for a paramour—it’s used to describe the illicit lover of a married person.”

“I don’t understand,” Booker said, automatically.

“Nothing that lives forever stays true. Joe and Nicky always had each other. They might stray, taking others to their bed—as everyone does, eventually, when you live as long as we do. But you and me, Book, all we will ever have is heartbreak. Now and always.” 

Booker felt his throat close up, choking up, as he contemplated the loneliness that welled inside him and threatened to engulf him again.

“You can’t let yourself think that what you’re doing with him will ever turn into more than what it is. That way madness lies.”

Booker felt her warning sink in, like an echo of a familiar refrain that had plagued him since his first death as he watched everyone around him suffer and die, but—as he contemplated whether he could ever reject Joe’s offer of company and intimacy—he realized it changed nothing.

Booker tried to lie to himself after that, to imagine that Joe cared for him as anything more than a bed-warmer. Whenever Nicky would announce he was going away, for a few hours or a few days to run some errands or a mission, all Joe would need to do is place his hands on his body—caress his chest, rub his leg, swat his arse—and he would go without question to keep Joe’s bed warm.

Sebastian shivered, as he lay naked in Joe’s bed, waiting for his lover to join him. He felt a little cold as the crisply-laundered sheets sapped the warmth from his naked body. He hoped the other man would join him soon and keep him warm, too.

Sebastian had almost started to nod off, but woke again when Joe came into the room.

“As much as I like watching you sleep, I’m glad you’re awake,” Joe said, joining him in bed.

“Bed head?” Sebastian said, trying to crack a joke.

“That would be nice, if we even make it that far. Andy just mentioned to me that Nicky’s only gone across town to meet with that arms dealer—not the Russian, the South African who always does things last-minute.”

“Here,” Joe said, as he freed his cock from his trousers, “give me a hand with this.”

Sebastian did as Joe bid. He leaned over on his side and took Joe’s cock in hand. With practised movements, he stroked and squeezed and nursed Joe’s member to hardness.

“Shit!”

Sebastian stopped when Joe’s body stiffened beneath him. They could hear voices in the other room, muffled, through the room’s closed door.

“Nicky?” Andy called out. “Did you strike out with Johann?”

“He didn’t show,” Nicky voice replied. “I expect he’ll make contact again and set a second meeting.”

Sebastian felt disoriented, as Joe abruptly detached himself their embrace.

“I like to think we’re usually a better judge of character,” Nicky’s voice was saying. 

Sebastian and Joe could hear their companions discussing whether they should consider looking for a different arms dealer. Sebastian imagined that once they’d exhausted that topic, nothing would stop Nicky from coming to look for Joe.

“We can’t do this, now,” Joe whispered to Sebastian, harshly, “but you can’t go out there—they’ll see you.”

“Nicky still doesn’t know?” Sebastian whispered back, dismayed.

“Don’t be _naif_ ,” Joe cut him off. “We don’t have time for this—”

They could hear Nicky asking Andy about Joe. She could be telling him everything or he could find out for himself in a moment when he caught them _in flagrante delicto_.

“Quick! He’s coming! Get under the bed!” Joe directed Sebastian, as he pushed him to the floor and under the bed. “Don’t make a sound!”

Sebastian heard the bedroom door open. He pressed his hands to his mouth, to stifle even the noise of his heavy breathing.

“Oh, Joe! Look at the state of you!” Sebastian heard Nicky say. “I suppose you were missing me?”

“Always,” Sebastian heard Joe reply. He could almost picture Joe’s smug smile, the one he used when he was about to get what he wanted, with that little tilt of his head and a raised eyebrow. “Come here and remind me how much I love you, Nicky.”

Sebastian stared at the slats under the bed, as it creaked and settled under the weight of a second man.

“Shall I kiss you?” Nicky asked.

“Yes!”

“Shall I touch you?”

“God, yes!”

“Shall I go all in and let you fuck me?”

Sebastian felt his breathing stutter, as he panicked, when he realized that Joe and Nicky intended to have a shag—without any concern for the fact that he was trapped under their bed. He wouldn’t have any choice but to hear it all and more from where he lay, hidden. He wondered, then, whether he could still try and sneak out unnoticed or stay concealed like a coward and bear the shame.

“ _Per favore_ ,” Sebastian heard Nicky beg Joe, “just fuck me already.”

“Show some patience, _habibi_ , I need to make sure you’re ready for me.”

“Oh, Joe—yes, do that again!”

“You liked that?”

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut, but he couldn’t block out the sound of flesh slapping flesh filled the room. He felt so humiliated, as he lay naked, hidden under the bed where his lover was fucking his husband into the mattress. If not, he might have felt worried that the bed frame might collapse and smother him beneath it.

“Joe, don’t stop!”

“You couldn’t make me, Nicky!”

“Shut up and fuck me, Joe!”

Joe growled in response.

Sebastian held his breath, as he strained to hear the words were the lovers were speaking even as they groaned and indulged and enjoyed each other’s company. He couldn’t help but compare what they were saying to what he remembered had been said to him.

_Tonight is all about me._

“No one ever makes me feel the way you make me feel. _’iinaa ahbk!_ ”

“ _Ti amo anche di più!_ I love you even more!” 

_Don’t say a word._

“Every time we fuck like this, _caro Dio_ , I give thanks to God he led me to you on the field of battle.”

“ _Alhamdulilah!_ He gave us to each other, so we might know more joy and more delight than any other beings in creation. I swear—knowing you, touching you like this, never fails to send me into ecstasy!”

_It’ll be our little secret._

Sebastian wanted to cry out and scream, but he couldn’t let himself make a sound, so certain was he that he would never live down the shame of being found out like this. He screamed, silently, into his clasped hands as he was forced to confront the fact that Joe was treating Nicky in a way that he had never treated him.

“Tell me when you’re close!”

_Beg me to fuck you harder._

“Take me, I—please, _Yusuf_ , _ti sto implorando!_ ”

_I’m going to make you scream my name, and when you cry out for mercy, I’m going to mark you as mine._

Sebastian felt tormented, as he was trapped and unable to make a sound or block out the sounds the lovers made as they howled and cried out with pleasure.

_Admit it, Sebastian. You liked it._

Sebastian let himself cry, as hot tears overflowed and streamed down his face, while he listened to them chase their pleasure and make the bed shake over his head like a battering ram. He felt as though each sound he was being forced to listen to was a curse directed at him, flaying him alive and denying him release.

_Don’t you dare move._

“ _’Ant jamil jiddaan habiy._ You’re so beautiful, my love.”

_Eshiq._

“ _Adulatore_. You’re an inveterate flatterer.”

_Adulterer._

Sebastian couldn’t hear anything, then he heard the bed creak above him again as someone moved. He wished he could die a true death, in that moment, when he thought the two lovers were setting up for a second round.

“I think I’m going to need a shower, then, to wash off all this spunk. Join me?”

“In a minute, _hayati_. Go and start without me.”

Sebastian almost cried out, aloud, out of a sense of relief or—perhaps—grief, when he heard one of them get up and leave and then heard the sound of water as the shower started running in the bathroom.

“Sebastian?” Joe called out to the man hiding under the bed. “Nicky’s gone. You can come out now.”

Booker groaned, feeling physically and emotionally wrecked, as he crawled out from under the bed. He took Joe’s hand when he offered it and fell weakly into his embrace, into the same hold the man had used to lay with his husband only moments before.

“You’ll have to forgive me, Sebastian,” Joe said, reaching out to stroke the lines that furrowed the Frenchman’s brow. “I didn’t know that would happen. I panicked when he came back.”

“I know,” Booker sighed. He hadn’t heeded Andy’s warning earlier and now he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt what Joe was doing with him.

“We don’t really have much time, just now. Nicky will be expecting me to join him before he’s done showering. But I could rub one off for you, if you wanted.”

Booker didn’t think he could have an orgasm, after the humiliating experience of listening to Joe and Nicky fuck each other with such passion while he was forced to hide under the bed. 

Booker shook his head, rejecting Joe’s offer. “It’s like you said, we don’t really have much time. Especially if you don’t want Nicky to know about—” Booker broke off as he gestured at the two of them and Joe seized his hand in a controlling grip.

Joe’s expression had closed off. When he spoke, it was with the same serious expression he used when speaking to men who antagonized him. “I like you, Sebastian, but I love that man beyond measure and reason.” 

Booker felt his gut twist as he realized what he was being told.

“I love that man more than you could ever presume to mean to me. His kiss still thrills me, even after a millennia.” 

Booker waited, showing a rare streak of stoicism, for Joe to twist of the knife in his gut.

“You’re a nice fuck, but you are naïve if you think I would ever consider jeopardizing everything I have with Nicky for a bed-warmer.”

Booker felt his body break out in a cold sweat that rolled down his back, as he digested the hurtful words spoken by the man he’d let take him into his bed. Booker nodded, swallowing, as he accepted his rejection.

“Good, I knew you’d understand,” Joe said, with a softer tone, as he patted Booker’s rough cheek. “How about this for an idea,” he proposed to him, “I will send Nicky on a three-day errand soon and take you to my bed and shag as many times as you want.”

Booker laughed or, perhaps, gave a little huff out of disbelief. He felt played.

Booker let Joe send him on his way, jeans in hand, with a playful swat at his bare arse.

Booker had hoped that Andy might have gone out and wouldn’t bear witness to his walk of shame. He found her sitting in the living room, drinking alone, as he hastily shrugged on his denims. He accepted the bottle of Scotch whisky, gratefully, when she passed it to him. She sat with him, staring impassively, as he drank long and deep to quench his grief. She didn’t need to say anything. He knew he was being used, dishonestly, by a man who sought a relationship with him for the sole purpose of not being alone. He knew he couldn’t keep on serving as a bed mate and sexual playmate to a serial adulterer and keep on deceiving his significant other. He knew he needed to end it. He also knew he would need help.

Booker ran his hands through his dirty blonde hair.

“Are you alright, Booker?”

“I think I need help, Boss.”

“That’s good,” she said, after staring at him with a gaze that betrayed her age. “I was thinking we should take a break. We’re all going to take a year off for some long-overdue R-and-R.”

Booker listened and tried to imagine taking more time off than a few days or weeks between assignments. He wasn’t sure what he would do with more free time than he’d had since he’d deserted _la grande armée_.

“You’re going to promise me,” Andy was saying, “that you’ll spend that time alone. Find a _raison-d’être_. Get laid. Read _War & Peace_.”

Booker chuckled. “I don’t think there’s enough time left in the world for me to read that _enfoiré_ Tolstoy.”

“Maybe you won’t,” Andy conceded. “But you have to promise me that you won’t get in touch with Joe or Nicky. I want you to give me your word on this, Book.”

“You have it, Boss.”

“Good. I know this is hard.” Andy knocked back the last of her drink. “I’m minded to think that when we start up this shitty game again and try to do some good, we’ll be doing group missions for a while—no more unaccompanied assignments or pairing up.”

After that conversation, Booker took Andy’s advice and when he couldn’t find a _raison-d’être_ , he found a different kind of purpose for his life. When they met again a year later in Marrakech, it was because he’d proposed the team do a repeat job for an ex-CIA man—James Copley.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this take on Booker's grief and loneliness, as he was manipulated and forced to watch Nicky and Joe have each other, please leave a comment. Your excitement gives me excitement (and ideas for other things I can write about).
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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